Well, got the axle out, a Kubota M7040 with forks won't lift a 644 axle, so its over 2000 pounds but it curls it easily, so I'm guessing around 2200 pounds, One axle stub was good looking, nice and clean the other axle tube was full of crap, a ton of grease mixed with oil to make about 3 gallons of nasty slop. The ugly axle looks like the retaining bolt fell out and the axle ran out past the bearing, chowdering the hell out of the housing, will replace both bearings, cleaned out the housings and both axle end seals are in backwards, good going doofus. Will be getting new seals and bearings, sending it off to JD to get things pressed apart and back on, will rehab the housing with a shim and some epoxy to make a new seal surface. Should be easy enough, just has to hold the grease in. Other side bearings look good overall, axle tube nice and dry, both seals in and facing the right way even. Now the bearing preload, it seems there's some shims between the planetary and the inner bearing, combined with axle length sets the preload. The book lists some pain the balls method of checking the bearing preload only with the axle assembled and under load, then measure vertical deflection, screw that!! I'm thinking shim and pry, measure axle end play and shim it down to just a couple thou when prying back and forth, axle half housing sitting on the bench.
Which of the three seals was in backwards, the very outside one? If the tube was full of grease I would have bet on the middle seal being in backward. Cheers
Well, the far outside one has the debris shield facing the bearing and the rubber running in the wind, the bearing to axle seal was in backwards, with the lip flange against the bearing but it couldn't seal anyway as the end of the housing where that seal touches is all screwed. We'll put a shim in there for the seal to press against as a good amount of metal is gone. That's the one that's all full of grease and glop. After armchair quarterbacking and brainstorming on how to move a 200lb axle to my shop, maybe the press would have enough travel, improvise a giant bearing splitter it came to mind the the local yellow JD dealer can do this job in half an hour most likely. Will have them replace the seals and one bearing.
So the manual talks about setting the axle bearing preload on the 644E, something akin to assemble the axle, drive it around, then dial indicate the back of the axle while applying full load to it, see how much the axle steps out. This seems a little, mmm difficult at best, assemble and fill, drive it around, well now if you need to adjust it, drain, remove etc. I can see the driving around to make sure the bearings are seated, but with the wheel on, it'd be darned near impossible to read an indicator, with the wheel off it might work fine but what a pain. My thought process is to treat it like a trailer axle and get it as close to 0 backlash as possible, put the axle half on a bench, apply a lot of force on the axle flange with the axle housing secured to the bench, measure backlash between the housing and axle flange. Any folks out there actually have a process for setting the pre-load that differs from the manual? I could simulate the load with jacking if need be, again on the bench.
Should be three seals in there, the outer one of course, then the one on the inboard side of the bearing, is the third one right at the planetary then?
Yep, christmas tree type outer seal with a metal guard, outer bearing, then the next seal is a soft lip seal, Inner seal is another spring tensioned shaft seal.
Well, the local JD dealer has had the axles for three weeks on wednesday, said should take 2 days, each week I call there's a reason. Today I'm going down there with the flatbed to pick up the axles, done or not. I'd almost be surprised to see that they had been removed from the pallet yet where we lashed them down. rear axle is all sorts of kerfookled where there should be oil there is what looks like several pounds of anti-sieze grease, one of the brake backing plates is ground all the way through on one corner, something spectacular happened. Front brake pads and backing plates to be replaced, the disks look to only have a few thou of wear, nothing major. brake pads are not far from the groove, I'm guessing its about 10 thou before the groove is gone. I'll put in new parts and call it a day. I'm wondering if a clutch resurfacer machine could spiff up the disc surface with a new grind, the step would make it tricky.
Well surprise surprise! Stopped in to get the axles and the manager said they hadn't started yet but the boys would jump right on it first thing in the morning. So, cut off two bearings, peel off the seals, tap on some new seals, heat a bearing and drop it home. cake walk. total bill $2000 what? what the hell... after consulting with the office folks, they dropped the labor charge from 800 down to 400 though the manager who wasn't in yet claimed it'd be 'a couple hundred labor for the whole job' I'm not sure what happened, I picked up the parts and will call them tomorrow. Good lord, 800 in labor I could have hired eight go-go girls for 10 hours to do the job.
Brake failure, mighty interesting! Something happened out back, right side looks fine, barely any wear on the components, all looks well other than the fact there's a gallon of what appears to be anti-sieze grease in the housing, all over and through everything. Gears look fine though. Left side is horrible! The first sign is the brake backing plate, 1/2 inch thick steel, its worn completely through on the upper right corner, the rotor has ground this plate down more than half its thickness. Upper right brake pad is tapered and worn, upper left has lower right corner wear and the bottom pad is just feathered toward the top. It looks like something happened and all the facings came off of the backing plate, not really sure but everything on the left side is getting replaced.
Typical Deere brake failure, they work great, but there's no way to know when they're toast, unless you're listening...
Someone was listening, when we got the machine the rear brake line was plugged and capped where it left the brake valve. there, no more noise. So the front pads were worn quite a bit but the other side rear, well it looks new, we'll leave that side alone.
Just makes you want to find the @sshat that did it and "ask" them WTH??
Likely the same person who thought it was a good idea to take a 3/4 coarse thread bolt and the big air gun and hammer it into a 3/4 fine thread hole on several of the lug nuts. Dooshweasel. Although the line was capped and the fitting plugged with a proper plug and cap.
Got some hub thread repairs done, one wheel had all 14 bolts buggered up, looks like someone tapped them coarse thread. Time to evaluate a time-sert, Overall a good looking product and a snug fit to the threads and the new bore give some confidence. Had to make another installation tool as the long reach inserts were jamming up before bottoming out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJUOePvye6g Also took delivery of a 55gal drum of Mobilfluid 424 to lube the axles and transmission and the hydraulics as well.
644E front axle rebuilt, new outer bearings and seals, one new inner bearing, new inner seals, all new brakes and everything cleaned through and through.
Well scooping pounds and pounds of glittery sludge from the rear housing, both inside wheel bearings are toast, the planetary stuff seems to be in good shape, brakes will be all new and replaced, one side brake backing plate has been completely ground through. Trying to get a feel for all the differential and pinion bearings, everything seems to be allright there maybe due to running with higher speeds and less load.
Well, rims came back from the sandblaster with some decent pitting as I was told to expect for solid filled tires on air type rims. Not terrible condition but some pitting, will fill them with bondo as they look like there's more than enough metal there, just needs some filling to make an airtight gap.
Well, 4 hours of work and 6 cups of Dunks! Loader is split at the pin, really wasn't awful but a lot of small jobs, draining, capping, disconnecting and marking all the lines. Hot dog what a fun project! people get paid to do this. It was me and a handful of volunteers and some supervisors everyone pitched in here and there even if just holding buckets and such, all is well and now we're on to line boring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF3BhhsPWt0